


Intervention

by Iaintnosidekick



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Implied Relationships, One Shot, Past Relationship(s), Sharing a Bed, Unresolved Sexual Tension, bad break up, because your friends are tired of your mopey crap, birthday fic, possibly incorrectly used alcohol references, trapped in a room together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 22:56:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15205313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iaintnosidekick/pseuds/Iaintnosidekick
Summary: Rey should have known Finn was trying to get her tipsy. He, Poe and Rose had been supplying her with a flurry of Long Islands from the moment the guests arrived at the party and she could hardly complain. Her mood had plummeted the second they had walked into the room, so if her friends wanted to cheer her up with a rum-and-coke, she wasn’t going to question it. In her mind, they were just trying to help her forget the large, dark shadow looming in the back corner of the room. Little did she know, her friend’s true intentions would be far more dubious? They’d been exchanging odd little glances here and there all night, but Rey had written it off as just them being worried about her. Never could she have imagined they’d been planning to forsake her in such an inebriated state. Of course, she knew they had good intentions, but Rey was ready to kill.





	Intervention

1:00 am

Rey should have known Finn was trying to get her tipsy. He, Poe and Rose had been supplying her with a flurry of champagnes from the moment the guests arrived at the party and she could hardly complain. Her mood had plummeted the second they had walked into the room, so if her friends wanted to cheer her up with something bubbly, she wasn’t going to question it. In her mind, they were just trying to help her forget the large, dark shadow looming in the back corner of the room. Little did she know, her friend’s true intentions would be far more dubious. They’d been exchanging odd little glances here and there all night, but Rey had written it off as just them being worried about her. Never could she have imagined they’d been planning to forsake her in such an inebriated state. Of course, she knew they had good intentions, but Rey was ready to kill.

After what had to have been at least five assorted drinks in the short time they had been at Leia’s benefit, Rey felt herself being led out of the room and back up toward the hotel. When she’d manage to slur out the obvious question of where they were going, they had all hushed her and insisted they were just going to go back to her room. While she may have had a hard time remembering exactly where the room she was sharing with Rose was, she was fairly certain it didn’t involve walking past so many doors. But, still blaming the booze, she followed her friends like a good little sheep and began to dream of falling asleep in a sea of hotel pillows. She had only just started to relax when they had reached the room. Of course, she was completely oblivious to the final round of looks and the fact she was the only one stepping through the door when it opened. A small part of her brain started to notice something was off, but then the door closed.

She sobered so fast she could pass a driving test.

Sitting on the bed, slightly undressed with only black pants and a slightly open button down, was freaking Ben Solo looking like a hare caught in a bear trap. Rey’s reality snapped back together so fast she was practically welded to the spot where her bare feet met the cheap hotel carpet. Everything came into focus, from the dimly lit furnishings to the way Ben’s lip had drooped ever so slightly. She also became suddenly very aware of her physical state and how obvious her excessive drinking must have been to him. Her shoes were in her hand and half of her hair had fallen down from how many times she had held her head sulking. Likewise, she noticed very quickly that his hair had been ruffled back in a frustrated gesture and what was left of his tie was bunched up angrily at the foot of the bed. What exactly he had done in response to their surprise encounter was beyond her, but she really didn’t want to stick around to find out.

The uncertainty settled around them for a couple of seconds longer before a violent scream erupted from her lungs so suddenly she made both him and herself jump.

“FINN!”

Spinning on her heels, Rey dove for the doorknob faster than her blood alcohol level should have allowed. When it didn’t budge, her fists reached up and slammed against the hardwood with a force more appropriate for trying to break it down.

“I’m sorry, Rey,” her ex-best friend’s voice called back. It was a good thing the frame was steady, otherwise, Rey was prepared to strangle him right then and there. “But this is for the best.”

“THE BEST!?”

“You two have been fighting almost an entire year,” Poe chimed in sounding way-too amused for a man whose days were officially numbered. “If you had listened to me and not interacted him in the first place, then we wouldn’t have had to resort to this.”

“I’m calling Hux,” Ben said after finally snapping out of his shock.

He had gotten off the bed and was approaching the door to—as his eyes suggested-- rip the door off the hinges himself. While Rey appreciated the sentiment, when he got close enough to smell the rage on him, she opted to keep some space between them. They could have still stood shoulder to shoulder in the small hall between the bathroom and the wall, but he didn’t fill in the buffer when she pressed herself against the wall to avoid touching him. 

“That won’t do you any good,” a new voice said with an evil chuckle.

“ARMITAGE HUX, I WILL HAVE YOUR HEAD FOR THIS!” Ben cried as a solid hit rattled the frame. 

“That’ll be kind of hard with this door in the way,” the redhead replied, sounding as smug as his little pale body could be. Rey could practically hear the smirk in his tone, “This is for all the moping you’ve put me through this past year.”

“Guys, I swear, if one of you doesn’t open this door, one of us is going to end up killing the other,” Rey said while ignoring the incredulous look Ben gave her.

“Ben, you kill Rey and it will be the last thing you do,” Rose barked now sounding like she was going to break the door.

“He’s not going to kill her,” Finn reassured with completely misguided confidence. “You two just need to work your crap out. All of us out here love you, and we are tired of seeing you two so miserable.”

“It really has become insufferable.”

“Shut up, Hux.”

“The point is this door isn’t opening until morning.”

“No, no!” Rey cried as a fresh wave of cold panic washed through her, “You cannot leave me alone that long with this man!”

“Well, I’m sure that’ll make them back down,” Ben scoffed with a sharp side glance aimed down toward her.

“Like your threats are going to make them want to open this door,” she shot back.

Even in the dark, she could see his lips pressing against each other in an attempt to hold back whatever bad response he’d come up with. She almost wished he’d just let it out so the tension in the room could finally snap into the violent battle they needed to let them escape. However, he managed to swallow his words and produce a better response with a less murderous tone.

“I promise I wouldn’t kill anyone if they let us out of this room.”

“Sorry Solo, but this door stays shut until morning.”

“Get cozy you two!”

With that, the hallway silenced as their captors giggled their way down the hall, probably back to the party they had abandoned. Rey kept her ear pressed against the wall in the small hope she’d hear one of them realize what a horrible idea this was and come running back to save her, but alas their laughter ended with the shutting of an elevator.

Without all the commotion, Rey slumped into the corner where the wall and door met as the last of her fury burned out. A sharp point began to form near her temples as her body began to remember how intoxicated she had been only a few minutes ago. Ben was still standing over her as his energy also faded and his large form began to waver in the low light. The man looked like there were a million thoughts running through his head and that he knew each one was an absolutely terrible idea. There was a moment when she thought she saw him give her a look like he was debating something, but he made the better decision and pushed himself away and back toward the room. Once he had officially left her personal space, Rey’s knees gave on her and she sank down to the floor, wondering how in the world her night had gotten so terrible.

“And I thought this night couldn’t get any worse,” Ben grumbled, practically mirroring her own thoughts of woe. Rey would have laughed if it didn’t annoy her so much.

“What are you even doing here?” Rey muttered, not really in the mood to wallow in his self-pity.

“I was invited,” he replied as he began to work out a small, five-step path along the far window to pace. “I thought it was a gesture of goodwill from my mother about the buyout, but now I suspect it had something to do with your insane entourage.”

“What about your psychopathic assistant?” she countered. “I bet he’d leave us in here to starve if they let him.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he would,” he mumbled, probably more to himself than anything.

Rey let him stomp around for a little bit. Even from her place nestled next to the door, she could still tell he was trying to keep himself under control. His silhouette continued to pace back and forth across the window until he suddenly paused in the middle of it. His arm appeared as a shadow as it reached up to run a hand back through his hair, and he let out the deep breath that had built up during his thought process. The cliché of “things never change” immediately popped into Rey’s head, but she squashed it back down before anything else traitorous could try to join it.

“It’s a good thing I get hungry after a couple of drinks,” he abruptly stated like she didn’t already know.

And then—like he had immediately forgotten what was happening—Ben pulled a large pizza up from a table behind the bed she could not see from her dark, little corner. Rey had no idea how long it must have sat there, but even the shadowed sight of it made her stomach betray her.

“Ultra-meat lovers?” she asked, trying to ignore the pull her stomach was beginning to have over her brain.

“Of course,” he affirmed like they were suddenly in the most casual situation they could be.

Completely shedding off the panicked ‘thinker’ look he had been sporting just a second ago, Ben stepped out from behind the one bed in the room and plopped himself on its far edge, closest to the window. After lifting the lid and ever so delicately picking a piece, he put the pizza box down next him to it so that it could be perfectly in the middle of the foot of the bed, and began eating it without another word.

He may only have appeared to grab a piece and start munching on it, but Rey was no fool. She knew exactly what he was doing. That box of delicious, meaty goodness was his perverted form of a peace offering, and Rey wasn’t going to fall for it so easily. She was well aware of this play, and it wasn’t going to work on her anymore. At least, that’s what she told herself.

After a minute of holding her position by the door, the scent of the carb-filled snack reached her nose. It was as if heaven itself had crafted the pie to be as tempting as possible to her growingly hungover body. Without warning, her stomach released a roar that could have been heard from the room over. It earned her a slightly concerned glance from Ben, but instead of commenting on her obnoxious stomach growling, he reached for another slice. When he didn’t say anything, she realized this was a more complex move than she ever could have imagined.

Her action at this moment would determine how the entire night was going to go and whether or not Finn and Hux would find them dead or alive come morning. Refusing the pizza now that he knew she was hungry would be a clear sign of aggression and probably end the night with a few flung fists. Taking a piece would no doubt lighten the mood a bit, but it could be easily misconstrued as meaning more than she wanted. They could end up accidentally dredging up some crap neither of them wanted to see again. Why in the world Ben Solo would give her power over their fate was beyond her, but… damn, that pizza smelled amazing.

When she stood up, she made a clear attempt to avoid his gaze. Her eyes were locked on that pizza box and they didn’t look away until she had a handful of that cheesy goodness. It must have been sitting out for a bit as it wasn’t tremendously gooey, but it easily made up for that by tasting just as absolutely fantastic as its scent had promised. She hadn’t meant too, but when she took her first bite, she sat down to let the sensation of fantastic pizza washed over her. It must have been ordered from some fancy place and cost more than what she earns in a day, but she didn’t want to comment or look like she was chastising him. It really was a great pie, and if she was going to be stuck in a room with Ben Solo until morning, she wasn’t going to start the night by insulting such an amazing piece of culinary art.

After eating over half the box and sitting in what was a mercifully tensionless silence, Ben made the first attempt to speak.

“We could turn on the lights.”

With the last bite of crust in her mouth, Rey almost laughed. It wasn’t so much because she only then realized how weird it was that they’d just been eating a late night snack in the dark, but because he had actually thought to ask her about it.

“Do you really want to make our situation seem any more real?” she asked trying to keep her tone even.

He let the response sink into the room before eventually giving her a modest shrug. “I think I’m already very aware with how real this is.”

Rey knew what he meant, but she wasn’t going to tell him so. From the moment they met, Ben Solo had always been like a magnet to her. Her polar opposite in all things, yet always finding ways to make her want to be closer. It hadn’t always been in the physical sense, but she had felt this odd sense of completion when she was near him. It was a strange form of attraction that was practically buzzing now that they were no less than four feet apart. Almost as if being apart for so long had strengthened it and given it a more solid form. Even if the room was completely absent of light, Rey had no doubt she would be able to know exactly where he was with no problem. It used to be a comforting thing, but now it only made her tense.

“Go ahead if you want,” she told him with as little enthusiasm as she could, “but I’m going to try to sleep this whole night away.”

When his weight shifted on the bed, Rey looked over to see him reaching over to turn the table light on. He fumbling around trying to find the switch for in the dark before it turned on with a small click. It let off much more like than the city light out the window, but it couldn’t compare to the industrial lights of the hall. It gave off just enough to illuminate Ben’s form as he pulled himself back up from where he had reached over to the lamp and made her turn away when she saw his shirt lifted up to reveal he hadn’t lost his muscle tone.

“Does that mean you’re going to ask for my bed?” he presumed as he adjusted his button-down.

If he had noticed her reddened cheeks, he didn’t say anything. It was clear to her that he didn’t want to fight just as much as she didn’t, otherwise, he would have jumped at the opportunity to tease her about her wandering eyes. But he didn’t. Instead, he was looking back at her with those big dark eyes she used to get lost in for hours. They were like little wells of patience that he had been saving up just for her and she wanted to punch him for using them to make her feel like he still cared about what she was going to say.

“It’s big enough for the two,” she told him, trying to sound as nonchalant as she could while also realizing she hadn’t thought through what she was saying. “I’ll take this side, and I don’t really care what you do about the other.”

With what could have been a humph, Rey pushed herself back toward the head of the bed and slipped under top comforter before Ben could try to respond. She made a point to roll as close to the edge as possible both to send a message and to hide the mortified expression that had solidified over her face. What had she just implied? That they share a bed? Lying flat on his back, Ben easily covered over two-thirds of his queen at home, and Rey was fairly certain the hotel hadn’t sprung for anything bigger. She’d have to reduce her size by half if she just wanted to avoid their shoulders rubbing and there was no hope they wouldn’t be swapping body heat. Not to mention the fact he had a bad habit of spreading out in his sleep. This had to be the absolute worst thing she could have suggested and she had half a mind to pick a fight just to get out of it.

But she was too stubborn. Wrapping the blanket around her like a shield, Rey straightened herself up right along the edge of the bed and waited for Ben to make his move. She could feel his eyes still on her as he undoubtedly took the time to run through all his options. When given the time, the man could be quite meticulous in his decision-making. It was how he was able to get where he was in life and hold it so tightly. However, all that would go out the window if she got him riled up and he got too up in his own head. Then he’d go right back to being an impulsive child throwing anything and everything he could at her.

It was funny how she knew him so well that she was able to predict what he was thinking right before he did it. Like how right then, he decided not to show weakness and moved to lay in the bed. He was careful to reach under so that he could get under both the sheet and the comforter to add a bit of fabric between them. She felt the sheet underneath her go taught as he pulled it high enough to slide under and the mattress sink as he laid back onto a pillow. As she expected, he took up most of the bed, but he crossed his left arm over his chest to keep what had to only be three inches between his shoulder and her back. Her breath caught as she waited for him to say something, but he never did. Nor did he even reach over to turn off the lamp. 

3:00 am

Ben had just woken up from a really weird dream. He wasn’t really even sure if it was a dream though because he didn’t know if he had actually fallen asleep. How could he when the girl that broke his heart and left him was only four inches away. From the moment she had stumbled into his hotel room, Ben was as wound-up as tight as a screw. It had taken everything in him not to freak out or throw himself out the window. Yelling at Hux had helped a bit, but it had taken some intense pacing to keep his composure in check. The last thing they needed was for him to lose his cool and reignite the war between them. So, he’d done the one thing he knew would work: stay quiet and offer food. 

While silence and awkward pizza eating wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened, Ben had this odd feeling of disappointment welling up in his chest. He’d accepted a long time ago that Rey would never willingly look at him in the face again, but having her so involuntarily close lit a small bit of hope in him. It was stupid and childish, but there was no helping it. Hux—though he hated to admit it—had been right in assuming he wasn’t over her, but if he wanted to help, there would have been a thousand better options than this. This forced contact was only making it clearer to him that Rey still loathed his very existence and he’d messed up the best thing he had ever had. All he could really do was speak as little as possible and let decide her decide how she wanted to wait for morning. Trying to sleep in the same bed was certainly an unexpected choice. 

But, eventually, he must have fallen asleep because suddenly he found himself back out at his mother’s party. Of course, with dream logic, he didn’t find this particularly odd beyond the fact he didn’t really want to be there. Hux was nowhere to be seen, so he was alone looking across the sea of bureaucrats and businessmen, feeling too big to comfortably fit in like always. But then, suddenly, he saw Rey parting the crowd and making her way toward him. She was wearing the same modest black dress and intricate updo undoubtedly picked out by his mother, but here, in the dream, she was smiling at him. As she got closer, he realized he had a smile just as big and bright as hers and he was at complete ease watching her waltz up to him like it was the most normal thing in the world. 

“You’re late,” she told him when she stopped only inches in front of him. 

“I’ve been here for hours,” he replied still grinning like an idiot. He could smell whatever warm and sweet perfume she had on, and he could have sworn she was still inching toward him.

With a smile, she reached up and pushed a strand of his hair back behind his ear and let her fingers linger there. “But you didn’t come after me.”

He frowned at this. The tip of her nail curved around the top of his ear in a playful gesture, but the warmth of her was beginning to wane. “What do you mean?”

When she looked up at him, he was startled to see her face had tears running down it. Her eyes had suddenly reddened and the quiver of her lip leaked into her pleading voice. 

“You know what I mean.”

Ben jerked awake. The lamp was still on and it looked to still be night, but he wasn’t sure because he had apparently rolled in his sleep. Now he was facing away from the bedside table and toward the woman who had just been crying in his dream. Having also turned over, she was facing him with one hand outstretched up by her face. Her eyes were blown out wide and staring at him like a wide animal caught in the light. Confused, he looked around her to see what he could have done to elicit so much shock when his heart dropped. His hand also outstretched out from his body. It was lying palm up next to his head, underneath hers. 

He opened his mouth to say something, but his tongue couldn’t form words. It had grown heavy under the weight of the world turning sidewise. All his neatly-stacked thoughts he had compacted earlier came flying back down through his brain and halting all mental processes and receptor input. His entire body was encased by an eerie sensation of hot and cold, threatening to eject Ben’s soul any moment. The only thing still working was the overload of signals being sent up through the nerves in his accused hand, making it the only real thing he could preceive through his panic. The only thing he was really aware of was the weight of her hand on his and the feeling of her warm palm pressed against every single cell that made up his skin. Their fingers were even interlaced as if one of them had reached out for the other and had no intentions of letting go. But he had no memory of doing so. So… if it wasn’t him. 

“Okay, I guess we have to do this.”

She was up and off that bed before Ben could even feel her hand leave his. It felt cold an empty without hers, but the sudden movement was enough to snap his body back into focus. Everything around him was still fuzzy and words were still far beyond his reach, but he was able to wiggle his fingers as Rey began volleying back and forth between the door and the window. The sound of her dress swishing back and forth was all Ben could hear as he sat up to face her. She could have dug a trench to fortify herself with how fast she was going, and Ben almost wished he had the foresight to do the same with the sharp look on her face. 

“No, we don’t,” he offered in a doomed attempt to defuse the situation. 

“No, I think we do Ben,” she shot back, not even trying to hold back the venom in her voice. 

Her whole upper body had gone rosy and slick as she fought back her own panic and a possible heat stroke. The expertly braided hair had officially fallen out and she was manually holding it up off her neck in an attempt to keep herself cool, or at least not as unkempt. Ben was in a similar state of dishevelment, but the last thing he was worried about right now was his wrinkled dress pants. 

“Look, we can blame it on ‘old habits die hard’,” he offered again, trying desperately to keep literal steam from whistling out of her ears. “It was just instinct.”

“Like that makes it any better,” she scoffed. On her way to the door, she was moving fast enough to blow a couple of strands back across his forehead and send him just a hint of her sent. 

“What did you expect was going to happen?” he shot back before he could stop himself. With his system completely free of shock, Ben could feel his veins replacing it with adrenaline, which was never a good thing when voice volumes begin to rise. “That we were just going to be able to lay there all night and wake up just in time for Hux to bring eggs?”

“I don’t know!” she replied this time bouncing back toward the window. “I thought maybe we could be adults and respect each other’s wishes not to be touched.”

“You know that’s not how we work,” he continued again without thinking it through. The heat in his blood was beginning to rise and his tone was not far behind it, “We used to always wake up in each other’s arms.”

“Don’t say that.” 

“Why?” 

Rey halted as she reached the window. Her sudden silence stopped his temper, but it was the look of her that caused it to begin fizzling out. Just her standing with her back turned to him sucked out all the need to speak from his tongue, and he was transported back to the night they had last seen each other. But now, illuminated only by the single table lamp, the shadows around her made her look so small against the great, expansive skyline. He couldn’t help being taken by her all over again. His heart was beating against his eardrums, and he desperately wanted to do something to help her. But the weight of her silence had him completely paralyzed, and he wasn’t able to do anything until she opened her mouth. 

“I promised myself I would never let myself miss you,” she whispered into the window. Her voice was quiet but firm and it held Ben’s attention in a vise grip. “You had made your choice and you couldn’t take it back. So I never called you, or messaged you, or even came to pick up my stuff. You betrayed me, and I told myself that meant there was no way I could still love you.”

Released by her words, he stood up with weak knees. Every syllable she had said was spinning around him like paper in a storm. He heard them all, but they went by so fast he couldn’t hope to understand what they all meant. Except for that last part. How could he miss that? Her silence meant it was his turn to speak, but Ben could hardly get the words out. 

“You still love me?”

Rey spun on her heels. Red outlined her eyes and tears streaked black down her face. 

“Of course I still love you!” she screamed suddenly, startling Ben silent. He’d seen her scream plenty of times, but the messy sobs and sudden outburst was something he’d hoped he’d never see again, “We were everything to each other, we sacrificed for each other, we were freaking unstoppable together!”

With a shaky breath, she paused to wipe her eyes. The storm around Ben had evolved into a hurricane, and even if she had meant to give him time to speak, he wasn’t able to before she had regained some of her composure. 

“You were my world, Ben,” she continued in a much more even tone. She was still crying, but she had gained more control over how much it affected her speech. “So when you chose power over me, I was completely destroyed. But even after all of that… I can’t hate you, Ben. I just can’t.” 

Ben stood there, shaking. What… what was he supposed to say to that? He had never been good with words and was even worse when they mattered the most. This… what even was this? An apology? No. A confession? Maybe, but just to say she didn’t hate him. What does that even mean? It doesn’t matter. He had to say something. She had just exposed herself to him like he had never seen, and he could not hurt her again. He wouldn’t. This was her giving him the opportunity to do something. He got to choose what so he had to use it to tell her the one thing he had wanted to tell her from the moment she walked out that door. 

“I’m sorry.”

His words lingered in the air between them. They sank down to his feet, and Ben had to keep himself from trying to pick them up. Rey was still staring at him, at first seeming unaffected by what he had said, but then, suddenly, breaking out in a big toothy smile.   
“It’s going to take a lot more than that to fix this mess.”  
She started laughing quietly, and Ben felt his lips try to match hers. Even if she was technically laughing at him, it reminded him of a much better time for them, which by itself would have made him chuckle.

“Yeah, I just thought that’d be a good place to start,” he told her with a painfully big grin.

Her chin bobbed up and down as her laughter died down, and she wiped the remaining tears from her eyes. There was still a smile on her face as she placed her hands on her hips and looked back up at him with those shining eyes of hers. Ben couldn’t remember the last time she looked at him like that, but he wasn’t going to let his chest tighten just yet. 

“You know this means we’re going to have to talk more, right? Big messes mean long and tiresome cleanups.”

He actually laughed. It was ridiculous and may be inappropriate, but there was no way he was not going to enjoy this playful banter he’d missed so much from his daily life. 

“You and I are no strangers to hard work.”

She beamed up at him for a moment. They both laughed as nicer memories floated between them, but eventually, she spoke again with a more careful tone.

“That is what you want to do though, right? Make it work?”

With only enough hesitation to not be overbearing, Ben nodded. 

“Do you?”

The rebuttal settled between them for a second before she beamed up at him. 

“Yeah, I do.”

7:30 am

Finn’s head was pounding as he pressed the button to the elevator. Poe and Rose had similar looks of hungoverness on their face, but Mister “never show weakness” Hux looked as perfectly trimmed as ever. Finn was pretty sure he looked the worst as only after he had settled into his room with Poe did he realize what a huge mistake they had made. He had hardly gotten a wink of sleep, going back and forth between rescuing Rey and letting the night play out. Poe had given up on helping him around three o’clock, so much of the night he was left alone to stew in his own guilt. He’d already volunteered to open the door as a sacrifice to whichever captive still wanted to come and knock the lights out of him. At least he’d finally get some sleep and an excuse to shut up his conscience. 

“Anyone want to bet Solo’s going to walk out with a black eye?” Poe asked through an extensive yawn.

“Shouldn’t we be hoping they made up or something?” Rose replied, shooting Poe as nasty a look as her multiple glasses from the night before would let her. 

“I don’t care what they did last night,” Hux told them, never looking away from his reflection on metal the elevator door. “Just the fear that we could do such a thing again should shock them both back into behaving more maturely.”

“What an optimistic thought.”

“I’m just being practical. I doubt either of them had the courage to even look at each other all night.”

When the doors open, Finn shuffled out behind Hux as he led the way to where they had trapped their victims. The door was still there, so no one had made a battering ram, but something sour was still churning deep in his stomach. 

“Will we go to jail if one of them actually killed the other?” Rose asked, suddenly sounding very nervous.

“I won’t,” Hux said as Finn pushed forward to unlock the door with the keycard. “With Solo dead, I will have the access to the best lawyers in this state.”

“So you think Rey would be the one to kill Ben?”

“Oh absolutely.”

The lock beeped open, and everyone went quiet. Finn took a moment to pray for everyone’s safety before gently pushing the door open.   
Dawn was spilling in from the exposed window as Finn took his first timid step inside. He had meant to announce his presence with some apologetic greeting but became even more nervous when he was met with complete silence. The only things visible one step in was half the window, the foot of a disheveled bed, and an abandoned pizza box. Still seeing no signs of life, Finn built up the courage to take another step and then another until he was able to peak his head fully into the room. His confidants were pressing against his back, eager to behold the carnage, but when his eyes landed on the bed, his feet rooted him to the floor.

With half the blanket fallen off, Finn was able to see the nearly complete bodies of Rey and Ben, fast asleep and curled up into each other. Still in her party dress, Rey had tucked her head into the crux of Ben’s arm, who in turn had pressed his face into the back of her neck. They were both facing away from a still-shining lamp and pressed together until only the farthest half of the bed was being used. Ben’s arm not acting like Rey’s pillow had lazily been draped over the curve of her hip and stretched out so that his hand could reach one of Rey’s. Each one of their fingers was interlocked with the others in a loose puzzle of human digits. The overall result was held tightly by Rey who kept it as close to her as their limbs would allow. Above them, their hair tangled together in a less intentional fashion that could only be the result of a collision course neither had really intended. Nonetheless, each of them looked completely at ease tucked into the other, and Finn couldn’t believe he thought either of these could be capable of killing the other. 

After getting over the initial shock, Finn spun his head around to look at the rest of his group and proceeded to push them back toward the door. Hux looked like he was going to protest, but Finn’s sharp look quickly shut that down. After what they had seen, Poe and Rose were too dumbfounded to protest, and none of them made a noise until Finn had silently closed the door behind them. His compatriots immediately devolved into inaudible expressions of aghast and horror. It soon became very obvious this was not the result Hux had really wanted, nor that Poe was as completely against the idea as he had originally let on. As for Finn, he still couldn’t speak. It was hard to look for words when his lips had spread so far he was sure they’d never be normal again.

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARISSA!!!!  
> I know this is late but I managed to finish it and I hope you like it! You've been an amazing friend to me and I would like to personally tell everyone you do not need to preface your online relationships as 'only internet friends' <3  
> You should also give a big thanks to my beautiful Betas @reylo-ology and @star-horse who helped keep me going and made sure it was legible for everyone. Also a personal thanks to @lady-baconator for running through it one last time for me and making it really fun to do so <3   
> Hope everyone who reads this little story enjoyed it and thank you so much for doing so! LOVE YOU ALL <3


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